Hell and High Water
by quicklime
Summary: Captain Jack Sparrow is seemingly untouched by time...which doesn't -really- make a love affair with Will Turner's daughter appropriate...but it's a delight nonetheless, as long as her parents don't find out and her lover doesn't drink himself to death (R
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed. Arrr.  
  
"...he is a blacksmith, you know."  
  
"No. He's a pirate."  
  
Prologue  
  
But William Turner wasn't a pirate.   
  
Not really. It wasn't as if he didn't have some...piratical inclinations. Blood will out, as they say. Indeed, no. The sea called to him like the sirens it had contained in the fairy tales he had been so drawn to when he was young, and he found it difficult to sleep without the rocking of a ship underneath him. And, of course, he was mad about treasure. Obsessed with finding it, and, once he possessed it, with guarding it, dragon-style, until the end of his days.   
  
And his treasure took the form of Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, and she rather trumped all else. He would rather die than see her hurt, and had suspected that losing her husband to the high seas and a life of crime, brigandry and drink might just do that. So, unfortunately for the son and heir of Bootstrap Bill, pirating was out of the question.   
  
Instead, Will Turner, the man who had spent nearly twenty as a blacksmith and a few hair-raising weeks as a pirate, was, of all things, an ambassador. It was more suitable than it seemed.  
  
Firstly, and most importantly, it was a proper vocation for the husband of the former Miss Elizabeth Swann. Diplomats were highly respectable and well paid, and there were no papers of aristocracy required to land the position, particularly when your father-in-law is particularly influential and determined to make you into something resembling a gentleman.  
  
Secondly, it allowed him to spend a reasonable portion of his life on ships. Diplomats need to travel; if this particular diplomat traveled somewhat more than was strictly necessary, nobody noticed or cared who really had any say in it. So, while not wholly satisfactory, the arrangement worked and it managed to quell certain urges that might, in another vocation, have surfaced abruptly and formed themselves into a very nasty midlife crisis. As it was, midlife came and passed disregarded and uncelebrated and by the time the story really begins, and piracy in William Turner's life was rooted strictly in the past.  
  
Well...  
  
That isn't precisely true.  
  
For later, treasure was embodied in a succession of children. If parenting ability or spousal skill was not exactly in his blood as piracy was, they were filed under "gold" and sorted out from there, with more-or-less successful results.  
  
But if certain traits were passed down to said offspring, even pirate blood would be highly diluted by the time it got to them, wouldn't it?  
  
They would be sons and daughters of a diplomat and a well-bred lady, and they would hear the call of adventure even less than their respectable father, right?  
  
And if adventure, tired of calling, decided to take more proactive measures and come find them?  
  
What then?  
  
Let us say that our respectable diplomat has a daughter who-at nearly 18, the eldest of his children-is finished school and just beginning to travel with her parents two and from England and the Caribbean colonies. Her parents, delayed unexpectedly in London, send her ahead on the planned voyage, and make arrangements to take a subsequent, less luxurious ship. The girl smiles and nods, accepting their offer, glad to leave England and the half-lidded glances of noblemen whose eyes travel first to her ring-less left hand and then sweep surreptitiously across the rest of her.  
  
Her name, by the way, is Lilian.  
  
She is of a marriageable age, and has been for a few years, but her parents, who are, after all, rather unconventional despite outward appearances to the contrary, have made but few quiet comments about appropriate gentlemen. Other than her unmarried, unengaged status, she is a perfectly normal young lady of her station.  
  
Well, relatively, anyway.  
  
She greatly resembles her mother in face and figure (and, perhaps, in temper,) with her father's dark hair and eyes. She is quite a lovely girl, as far too many irritating Englishmen seem bent on noticing.  
  
She is very glad to be returning to Port Royal. Several of her siblings will be greeting her there, and she will be able to relax, knowing that the infuriating aristocracy is several weeks' travel away.  
  
And of course the pirate blood in her veins is probably very diluted indeed. So weak as to be practically nonexistent.  
  
Yo ho. 


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed. Um...Mateys.  
  
And furthermore: Wow. You guys are AWESOME. I absolutely LOVE YOU.  
  
*Chapter One*  
  
Lilian Turner was bored out of her mind. The HMS Lariat was a lovely sailing vessel, and that was a fact that did not go unacknowledged by the young woman in the first class cabin, but she was hardly in a position to appreciate the ship as it deserved, for she remained below deck most of the time in a sort of self-imposed sequestering.  
  
It was, in fact, only self-imposed at the surface. For the first three or four days of the voyage, Lilian had tried to involve herself in deck life, but she had found it as unbearable as any society gathering back in London. In addition to the captain, a blustering, painfully proper man who obviously resented having his ship used to ferry passengers, no matter how important they might be (and Lilian was certainly not considered important. She was only half-aristocratic, and a woman to boot, and while the captain himself was certainly far to civilized to allow such superstitions to take root, she made his crew nervous.)   
  
She did make the crew nervous, actually, but that was more due to the influence of several young, new officers of Her Majesty's Navy traveling to their first employ in the Caribbean. Every time she even came close to conversing with a nervous crewmember, she was gently escorted away and the crewmember was chastised. Lilian, obviously the guilty party, and acutely aware of the injustice, retreated to her room, cursing officers in general and her's in particular. Her hopes of escape from society's propriety had been overly optimistic, she realized unhappily.  
  
Officers, she decided, were like aristocrats in disguise. With morals. And uniforms. And a very disgusting power-to-intelligence ratio.  
  
Two weeks into her voyage, she knew that her parents had already sailed from England and she could feel the change in the air--heat, humidity-that came with the Caribbean waters. Conscious that she was missing all the fun of ship life, of the stale air and the boredom and the gradually growing heat, Lilian sighed and stewed and sulked and waited to arrive at Port Royal.  
  
"You oughtn't to skip dinner again, Miss," her maid told her. "And you'll want to start dressing now if you're to be ready."  
  
Oh, dear, no. It would be terribly impolite to relinquish the captain's horrible, decadent food and miserable company, not for the third time in a week. Lilian was lounging on her narrow bead, sleepy in the unfamiliar warm weather and sort of half-reading a novel. She frowned at the girl.  
  
"...and after all the favors your father called in to book you passage," she continued, ignoring her mistress's glare.  
  
"Alright, alright. I rather doubt it will take me an hour and a half to dress for dinner, but I'll get no peace from you if I don't, will I?" Lazily, Lilian dog-eared her page, rose, and stretched, and began to dress.  
  
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, miss, if I was bothering you..." the maid said and continued to apologize without any attempt to sound sincere for some minutes before Lilian managed, also without any attempt of earnestness, that she was forgiven. It was typical of their relationship. Lilian despised the girl...(what was her name? Rosie? Daisy? something prissy and insufferable like that) and her maid returned the favor at least threefold.  
  
In addition to her overstated pseudo-servile frame of mind, Rosie-Daisy was absolutely unmerciful when it came to corsets. Lilian had been right--she found herself washed and dressed, powdered and perfumed, and laced into iron and whalebone designed to break her lower ribs if she tried to sit too quickly with at least forty-five minutes to spare before the first guests would appear at the captain's table.  
  
The maid apparently took no notice of this, and sat in a corner, demurely embroidering a handkerchief as Lilian, trying not to wince and show weakness in the face of the enemy, lowered herself carefully onto the bed, returning to her book in a far less comfortable state than she had previously enjoyed.  
  
"Wretched little servile...sniff, sniff," Lilian muttered viciously at the maid.  
  
"I'm sorry?" the girl asked in a sugary-sweet voice.  
  
"I said-" Lilian, disgusting herself, took refuge in aristocracy. "That there are cobwebs in the corner."  
  
"Of course, Miss. I'll dust this evening." The maid nodded. "I'm afraid you might wrinkle your skirts if you lie there, Miss."  
  
She laces me into this torture device, and she wants me to stand for the next hour? Lilian thought disgustedly, but her righteous indignation soon faded into simple weariness and she chose not to fuel the fire.  
  
The slothly state that the miserable voyage had forced her into, combined with the heat and humidity of the air and the fact that there wasn't enough of it reaching her lungs quickly overcame her; she kicked off her boots and was dozing almost immediately.  
  
She awoke, abruptly and unpleasantly to the thunder of cannons. The first boom was followed by a splash; the second by an enormous crack. She felt the ship creak and shudder ominously underneath her.   
  
The first was a warning shot, she thought dreamily, strangely unworried. And then they've probably hit the mainsail. Pirates.  
  
Pirates had been a fascination in her youth, and had resurged with each younger sibling; all of them had grown up knowing of their parents' adventures. Slowly, with age, the adventures and their glory faded and Lilian, sleepy and uncomfortable, felt little excitement of the prospect of a pirate attack. It would mean a delay. Her parents would reach Port Royal before her and it would make the discomfort of this miserable trip pointless.  
  
Her maid was screaming hysterically.  
  
"Oh, shut up!" Lilian snapped crossly, wondering if the effort of getting up from the bed would be worthwhile to slap the girl. She decided it would not.  
  
Her sleepy, dreamy state was fading as the shrieking reached full soprano, and she was starting to worry. They wouldn't destroy the ship; they would loot and ransack and perhaps ransom a few of the officers. Or kill them. That would be bad. Weary as she was of the fussy, foolish men, she didn't wish to see their blood spilled. Or her own, come to think of it. And there were worse things that could happen.  
  
A few shots were fired and a few shouts sharply cut off. Lilian felt for the pistol under her mattress.  
  
She checked. Shots and powder, all in order. She had just snapped the barrel closed when somebody kicked the door down.  
  
"My, my," he said mildly. "They don't make hinges like they used to, do they? Oh, hello dearies."  
  
Lilian's eyes widened and she finally stood.  
  
She took aim.  
  
He eyed the gun, affronted and confused, and turned to the wailing Rosie-Daisy. "She has a gun. Why do all the girls have guns these days?"  
  
The maid's screams turned into a stream of semi-coherent babbling. "You don't want me...don't hurt me...SHE'S the ambassador's daughter...take her..."  
  
"You little BITCH!" Lilian almost pointed the pistol at the traitorous cleaning staff, before realizing that the pirate in her cabin doorway was probably more important.  
  
"Ambassador's daughter, hmm? And such language, too. That's...interesting."  
  
He sauntered inside, ignoring the furious Lilian and her terrified servant, who was now whimpering.  
  
"Not a step closer!" Lilian raised the pistol.  
  
He tsked and took another swaggering step. "Pretty little girl like you wouldn't kill a man."  
  
"Maybe not." She lowered the gun until it pointed at his thigh.  
  
"Clever." Tiny little mincing zigzag step.   
  
"Very clever indeed." Step.   
  
"Clever, I'll grant you, and quite pretty, too...Just not." Step.   
  
"Very." Step.   
  
"Quick."  
  
And suddenly, his hands were at her wrist, squeezing hard enough to bruise and wrenching the gun away from her. Lilian found herself pressed hard against her bedpost, far too close to him, smelling sea and salt and whiskey. It was suddenly much more difficult to breathe.  
  
Once again, he seemed to ignore her. "Haven't taken a hostage in quite some time," he said to himself. "Might be interesting. Indeed. Profitable, perhaps...Yes!"  
  
At this point, it was obvious that there would be no earnest young officers to come rescue her, and Lilian began to struggle and shout.  
  
"Now, now, luv, don't do that," he said wearily. "Makes this all so much more difficult." He had a wrist in each hand, and Lilian was making no progress but tiring herself out.  
  
With practiced skill, he juggled her wrists until he clamped both of them in one hand, and pressed the other, warm and calloused, against her mouth.   
  
"Quiet now, savvy? You aren't exactly in a favorable position, darling, and you could make this easier on yourself and all concerned."  
  
Lilian sank her fingers into his skin.  
  
He wrenched his hand away. "Avast! She BITES!" he cried, dramatic, and examined his bleeding wound. "And well, too, it would seem. Had practice?"  
  
Her last-ditch effort had not won her much except for a much more uncomfortable grip on her wrists. She wondered that he still hadn't hit her.  
  
He leaned back to study this strange girl; so bold for an aristocrat. Her lips were slightly bloodied and her cheeks flushed with fury and fear. She held her tongue. She was well-dressed and rather well-figured too, and there was something about her face that seemed familiar.  
  
Well, a lot of girl's faces seemed familiar, but rarely ones this obviously wealthy.  
  
"Do I know you, luv?"  
  
"Not exactly," she said.  
  
He grinned golden. "Then allow me to introduce myself, my dear. I am Captain-"  
  
"Jack Sparrow. I can tell that. My mother collects your wanted posters." Lilian's eyes narrowed. "Shouldn't you be older?" 


	3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed.   
  
I'm starting to get scared. People are complimenting me on plots and character depth...that's a lot to live up to, you know? Well, I'm doing my best, and I'm really having a lot of fun with this. And reviews make me feel all warm and fuzzy, even if they do present huge challenges in the form of compliments.  
  
*Chapter Two*  
  
"...Jack Sparrow. I can tell that. My mother collects your wanted posters." Lilian's eyes narrowed. "Shouldn't you be older?"  
  
A tall man, in shirt, vest and trousers that had seen better days, leather tricorner hat, dripping with so many rings, beads and trinkets that it looked as if he had given up years ago on trying to wear them in some semblance of fashion and simply attached them wherever he could; most of them had ended up braided into his unruly dark hair. His skin was dark, though from sun or dirt or both she couldn't tell. His eyes were dark as well, lined with charcoal, and looking at her in a rather disturbing state of what was either madness or intense confusion. He was, despite all odd, rather handsome. And, if she guessed right, at least ten years younger-looking than he ought to be.  
  
He ignored her last comment, and continued to stare at her wonderingly.  
  
Her spine stiffened as he took her chin in his hand, tilting her head this way and that. His gaze swept, shamelessly, down the length of her body, and returned to her face. He smiled, briefly, and then his expression darkened.  
  
"Tell me," he said plaintively. "Tell me please, for it would be greatly upsetting, my dear...and it has been a rather upsetting day, and I would love a touch of good news, savvy? Please tell me that Will Turner hasn't turned a diplomat."  
  
Lilian felt an involuntary smile creep at the corner of her lips. He sounded like a disappointed child. "Sorry."  
  
"Alas!" With a Shakespearian wave, he relinquished the grip he had on her wrists. "Aristocrat. Gentleman. Oh, dear. And I had such high hopes for the boy."  
  
"Sorry," she said again. "And he's not really much of a boy. He's...well...he's older than you are."  
  
This, too, was shoved aside in the murky recesses of Jack Sparrow's perception. "He's a pirate, you know."  
  
"So I've heard."  
  
"And what are you?" He wrinkled his nose at her, staring as if it was written on her face. "You don't look much like him, although I suppose that's a good thing. You look like Elizabeth."  
  
"I've been told that."  
  
Jack, for a moment, was silent. "Well, I suppose I'd better get on with kidnapping you."  
  
Lilian was astonished. "But...!"  
  
"Family friend card, yes, I know, and your old dad--not to mention your grandfather--really does hold a special place in my heart. But if word of that sort of thing gets out, you would be simply amazed by the number of second cousins a man can suddenly possess. Simply can't make such exceptions or the world gets too complicated. Savvy?" He smiled sympathetically and drew his pistol. "Consider yourself a hostage." He bowed.  
  
Lilian's maid let out a particularly loud whimper and promptly started screaming again.  
  
"Is she always like this?" he asked, rising and gesturing grandly at her. With the hand that was holding the pistol. The screams reached an unbelievable pitch.  
  
"She screamed like that when she saw a mouse yesterday morning."  
  
"If I threaten to shoot her, will she stop?"  
  
"Tried it myself. Doesn't do anything. If you ACTUALLY shot her...maybe. I'm not sure." Lilian shot a vicious glance at the woman. "Feel free to try, though."  
  
He shrugged. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you. Best move quickly then. I imagine my crew has just about finished up. Come along, luv."  
  
With a viper-quick move, he had grabbed her wrist and nudged her through the splintered doorway and into the early afternoon sun.  
  
It was immensely hot; so much so that Lilian almost swooned as she crossed the threshold. She took a handful of long, heavy (Damn that woman) miserable skirt in each hand and stepped delicately across the deck.  
  
Most of the crewmen were tied to the remains of the mainsail; a few men were scattered about, unmoving. Lilian's breath caught in her throat, and she gave a silent prayer that they were merely unconscious. There wasn't much blood on the deck; perhaps the gods had been kind. The corset suddenly seemed much tighter than it had a moment before, and, once more, she cursed the nasty little bitch who had forced her into the thick mess of whalebone and cloth.  
  
Not so thick, though, that she couldn't feel the size and shape of the object pressed softly smack between her shoulder blades.  
  
Oh ye gods. The madman had a pistol at her back.  
  
"You're a hostage, girl," he said wearily. "Put your hands in the air. I'm sure you know how these things are done."  
  
"If I put my hands in the air, I'll trip over my skirts," she said.  
  
"Put one hand up, and hold your skirt with the other."  
  
She tried. "I look like I'm asking the teacher a question."  
  
He poked her sharply in the back with the gun. "Why, pray tale, are your skirts so much longer than you are in the first place?"  
  
"My skirts aren't too long. I've got no shoes on," Lilian explained patiently.  
  
He growled. "Stay put, luv." He dashed back into her cabin.   
  
("Shut up, you stupid little bint, or I'll shut you up!" she heard faintly, and grinned to herself. Was there ever a less frightening pirate to be kidnapped by?)  
  
He came out holding a high-heeled, lace up boot between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and a gun shoved into his sash.  
  
"Put your shoes on, girl, and lets hurry it up. I'm sure one of these brave seamen is just aching to wake up and play the hero and I'd rather not have to deal with them a second time."  
  
Lilian, bemused, sat on the deck and laced her shoes. As she placed her hands in the air and felt the gun at her back, the humor of the situation suddenly seemed dry. Too many of the Lariat's crewmen, too still, and, Jack Sparrow, no matter how oddly friendly, no matter how strangely appealing, was still a pirate. And a madman.  
  
And a madman with a pistol at her back, at that. Frightening after all, she decided, although she didn't have much comparison but her parent's stories, less frightening with each retelling.  
  
She stopped for a moment; the two or three men closest to her seemed to be breathing. One of Jack's crew--and an oddly sober, fresh-faced man for a pirate he was; in fact, he reminded her nothing more than most of the young officers tied to the mast--jogged over.  
  
"All done, sir. Not much to loot, and few supplies. They were nearing the end of their journey."  
  
"Ah well. I suppose we'll simply have to stop by Tortuga." Jack gave an exaggerated, theatrical sigh. "I found us a nice hostage, by the way, while you lazy fellows were stealing water." He took her by the shoulder and shook her gently like a doll. "Aaron, hostage. Hostage, Aaron."  
  
The young pirate bowed. Lilian nodded.   
  
"Aaron, be a dear and clean up here. I feel, as Captain, I ought to escort this pretty little darling to The Pearl."  
  
Aaron nodded.  
  
"Delightful. Now, my dear, if you'll keep walking...that's my girl. Come along now...careful, there, boarding planks get a bit slippery..."  
  
Boarding planks got more than a bit slippery. Boarding planks got a bit absolutely terrifying, Lilian realized to late.  
  
This wasn't a boarding plank. Boarding plants were broad and dry and, in her recollection, there were always freshfaced young officers on either side of you to help you down. More importantly, they were used to board to and from land. This thing, whatever it was, was being used to go from one ship from another, whilst both seemed intent on rocking in different directions. It was slippery, and it was narrow, and it was a good twenty feet above an ocean that had never been quite this terrifying before.   
  
No grandchild of Bootstrap Bill Turner would ever be afraid of heights. Afraid of painful death, however, was fair game. Lilian was suddenly unpleasantly dizzy.  
  
Slippery. Slippery and narrow enough that it would be a very, very bad idea to trip right now.  
  
Her feet, unfortunately, had only caught the tail end of that sentence. "Trip right now" they did.  
  
Lilian, rather than falling to a cold, quick death crushed underneath either The Lariat or The Black Pearl, stumbled half a step backward only to be caught gently in the waiting arms of Captain Jack Sparrow. She bit her lip and concentrated on willing the plank to stop spinning. He held her by the shoulders--pistol back in his sash and waited patiently.  
  
"It's alright, kitten. Just a few more steps and you'll be on the lovely Black Pearl. Come on, luv, you can do it. You can get on your knees and crawl if it'll make you feel better."  
  
Some indignities were simply too much to bear. She managed to reach The Pearl on two very unsteady feet, with Jack behind her.  
  
He was directly behind her as she reached the end; as soon as her feet touched the deck, she flung his arm away from her; something disgusting that should not touch her skin, and wrenched away.  
  
"Relax, darling. You're safe."  
  
Lilian glared at him. "SAFE? Safe? On a pirate ship with half the Caribbean law chasing it, and pirate clans feuding since they haven't for generations? Safe?"  
  
"Of course, my dear. You forget. You're with Captain Jack Sparrow."  
  
"I don't know which to take comfort in: the fiction or the madness."  
  
"Suit yourself. But didn't you ever wonder the blood that called in your father?" he asked. "All the adventures you were never going to have."  
  
"This," she snapped, "is not an adventure."  
  
He closed the space between them, one hand delicately sliding up her neck as he purred softly in her ear. "We could make it one, now couldn't we?"  
  
She tore away, fury staining her cheeks, and tried to slap him.  
  
He caught her wrist--again, too fast, too strong--and held it midair.  
  
"Bootstrap's temper," he muttered. "Not Will's, certainly, and not Lizzie's either."  
  
He looked at her: not angry, not upset...not anything really, except slightly puzzled, and perhaps he looked like that all the time.  
  
He shook his head. "On land, I'd let that fly, little girl, but this is MY ship, and such things will not stand. Savvy?"  
  
His grip on her arm tightened, fingertips finding veins and nerves, and Lilian nodded. He dropped her hand, and she let it fall to her side.  
  
"Good girl. Now, lets find you somewhere to sleep. Although..."  
  
It had to be an impressive glare if it could stop that sentence, and it was. Lilian's dark eyes were flashing and her jaw was squared sharply.  
  
"Look at the sunset. What a lovely time of day! Come along, m'dear!" Jack said cheerfully, taking her gently by the much-abused wrist and leading her below deck.  
  
"Anamaria claimed this room when she first came aboard. It's supposed to be for a first mate, but I doubt he wanted to challenge her at the time and I don't know who the first mate is right now. Dunno where Anamaria got off to, come to think of it. I thought it was quieter around here. Anyway, kitten..."  
  
"Lilian."  
  
"Come again?"  
  
"I have a name. Lilian."  
  
"Ah. And a lovely name it is too, kitten. I must catch up with you later, really. But I've a ship to run, you see, and I simply must be off. Be a dear and stay put, luv."  
  
Not much of a choice in that, Lilian thought grimly, as she heard the click of a key turning in a latch.  
  
It wasn't a bad room, aside from the obvious being-locked-inside-it part. Her ship had been captured and disabled. She'd been kidnapped by the most notorious pirate in the Caribbean. And yet here she was, in very nearly the same hot, musty situation as she'd been in before. Adventure indeed.  
  
She stared at her wrists, ringed with blossoming red-purple bruises and smeared a little with blood. But she wasn't bleeding. It must, she realized, be his. She'd drawn it.  
  
The soft brown curls might be Will's. The pretty face and the pretty lips might be Elizabeth's. But if Jack had seen her at that moment, he would undoubtedly have agreed that the roguish, wicked smile playing across them belonged with utter certainty to the late, great Bootstrap Bill Turner.  
  
Or, quite possibly, to Jack Sparrow. But that was a given, really. 


	4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed.   
  
And, once again, thank you for all the kind reviews. I'd like to open the floor to criticism too, though. It really is very helpful. (Mast/sail. Got it ^_^) I'm afraid this chapter is a little stiff. I'm working the kinks out.   
  
Also, my grasp of the whole Jack-speak is may be a little weak. I've read some fics that capture his tone really well, and I've read some that tried and failed. So...I dunno. I decided to err on the side of normal.  
  
Has anyone noticed that there are about as many PoTC Mary-Sue parodies as Mary-Sues? This is starting to bother me, as a "writer" who has absolutely no problem with Mary-Sues as a general rule. Oh well.  
  
*Chapter Three*  
  
Lilian rubbed the little smear of drying blood into oblivion and examined her newly multicolored wrists in the thin pink beam sunset that managed to creep through the dirty porthole. This Anamaria must have had a lot of pull, she thought, to rate a window at all.  
  
She'd left in a hurry, though; that was for sure. A trunk full of clothes and oddments lay at the end of the small bed. Mostly men's clothes; trousers, vests and coats, all well-worn and carefully mended, suited to the pirate life that their owner had lead. A couple skirts, tucked carefully underneath, of the same make.  
  
Beneath it all was a pistol with no shots left and a slightly rusty saber; a balanced, solid make. It was adorned with little more than rawhide strips for a sure grip, and it was slightly shorter and slightly lighter than swords usually were. A woman's weapon.  
  
She smiled to herself and tucked both weapons away. She longed to change into Anamaria's clothes, for they looked about the same size as hers, only far more comfortable, but that would require unlacing several layers of dress and her elbows didn't move that way. At some point, she would require assistance--but best not to think about that for the moment. She shuddered.  
  
A much younger Lilian Turner had possessed an odd habit. Whenever the young girl found the world upsetting or stressful, or whenever she was bored or depressed, she would sleep. Anywhere, at any time, and for far longer than people, particularly three-year-olds, should be able to. The flip side of this was, apparently, an ability to not sleep at all if she so chose. Lilian, three years into the world, was able to go at least five days without sleeping without showing any negative side effects.  
  
Will and Elizabeth Turner, who were, after all, new at parenting and understandably nervous, found this quite distressing. As soon as their daughter was old enough to comprehend this, her habits normalized out of compassion for two loving people who were obviously way out of their depth. Lilian, some fifteen years later, barely remembered her talents, but they remained nonetheless.  
  
She was locked in a small, dim room on a pirate ship. With nothing in particular better to do, Lilian made herself as comfortable as the musty bed, long unused, and the miserable corset would allow, and slept.  
  
It was much later, in the quiet wedge of night between midnight and dawn, when it is not only dark, but quiet and still, and even the waves seem to subdue themselves, that Jack, standing on the deck and watching the horizon, remembered her.  
  
It occurred to him that she might be terribly frightened; bold facades tend to fade when one is locked away alone in a strange place (not his, of course, but other people's,) and it occurred to him that she was probably hungry.  
  
It did not occur to him that she was sleeping.  
  
Sleeping rather angelically, too, for someone who had recently bitten him hard enough to draw blood. She blinked at him, and growled, and any heavenly resemblances were gone.  
  
"Mrrmph...go 'way."  
  
He smiled at her unrepentantly. "Naw, kitten. Wake up! Its nice and quiet and we've some catching up to do!"  
  
She stared at him. "You destroy my ship. You kidnap me. You lock me up for hours. And now, you wake me up, and you want to play 'Uncle Jack' in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT?!"  
  
He nodded cheerfully. "All by me onesie, kitten; Captain Sparrow gets bored easily. Come along now, it's a lovely night."  
  
"Captain Sparrow is absolutely mad," she muttered under her breath, swinging her still-booted feet over the side of the bed. *If he calls me 'kitten' one more time...*  
  
He winked at her. "Naturally, luv. Madness keeps a pirate on his feet and out of his grave. That," he added. "and very good hearing. Now, kitten: tell me about my dear old Will."  
  
She sighed. It -was- a nice night, warm and clear with enough of a breeze to keep the humidity away.  
  
"S'pose he and darling Elizabeth got married after all," he prompted.  
  
"One would hope so, yes."  
  
"And now they've got a whole litter of little Turners?"  
  
"Five children. I'm the oldest. Besides me, there are two girls and two boys. And my name, if it slipped your mind, is Lil-i-an."   
  
"Of course, Lilzie, of course. Any little Jacks running about?" he inquired hopefully.  
  
That almost managed to eke a smile. "Sorry."  
  
He sniffed. "A born pirate, turned diplomat, and he wouldn't even name a child after his dear old friend. I saved his life, you know!"  
  
"You kidnapped his daughter, too."  
  
He ignored her. "It's in the blood, you know, and I can't imagine it doesn't call to him. S'pose he's a diplomat as an excuse to much about on ships all the time."  
  
She blinked. Oddly enough, she had always suspected that herself.  
  
He sighed, almost sincerely. "I meant to keep in touch, you know. Never meant to sail off into the sunset, never to be seen again. You turn your back for a few years, and suddenly he's gotten himself a wife and a family and a big slice of 'respectable.' Should have kept an eye on him." He seemed suddenly despondent, and Lilian felt an odd wave of pity.  
  
"You haven't seen him for nearly twenty years. Things have to change."  
  
He looked at her blankly. "No they don't." He shrugged.  
  
At first, she was tempted to ask him again the question he had ducked earlier. 'Shouldn't you be older?'   
  
But the words that came out instead were:  
  
"What was my father like when you met him?"  
  
He smiled. "Now that's a long story, and I'm sure you've heard it before. But I don't doubt a few important details were left out. Come in and sit down love, and I'll tell you."  
  
It was in this dimly lit cabin that her mother had encountered Barbosa. It was on that deck that ghostly pirates had walked for nearly a decade, terrifying the entire Caribbean.  
  
He was a master storyteller, she had to admit, full of unselfconscious drama and flair, and if the story was highly fictionalized to give full sway to Jack Sparrow's ego, it was highly entertaining too. She added in the occasional detail from her parents' much more sober rendition, and as his tale ended, the much more mundane telling of what Will and Elizabeth Turner had been doing for twenty years began.  
  
("And then your mother and I were trapped on the island together, and she was drunk out of her boots, she was. Never could resist a little rum, that girl...couldn't resist a dashing Captain either, but I stood firm 'gainst 'er, 'cause I knew that once I sailed away and disappeared over the horizon, after a couple o' days she would remember that she loved Will...")  
  
And Lilian was a good listener. She laughed when she was meant to, and ooh-ed and ah-ed, just as the fantastical exploits of Jack Sparrow demanded. Slowly, and without realizing it, she was allowing him to slip back into the role he had occupied in her childhood: a magnificent, Robin Hood-type figure, famous in legend and story...not quite hero, not quite villain, but simply a astounding individual who couldn't possibly be entirely human.  
  
Though a few traces of venomous resentment were left towards him--and justifiably, too; the man had kidnapped her, after all--Lilian was starting to view him as he seemed to view all of creation, with a sort of weary resignation, tinted with both fascination and humor.  
  
As pink began to tint the lightening sky, the unasked question--'Shouldn't you be older?'--remained at the back of her mind, saved for a later date.  
  
It was dawn, and she was feeling wide-awake. Sounds of waking were beginning, such as "Great merciful God, have I got a hangover," "be quiet, I have a hangover" and "if you sods don't shut up, I'm going to tear all your limbs off and feed them to the sharks!"  
  
Lilian, for the early hour, was feeling surprisingly wide-awake and sober. So was Jack, as least as far as "awake." Sober, in his experience, was something that happened to other people.   
  
"Breakfast," he suggested.  
  
"Breakfast," Lilian agreed. "Would be absolutely delightful."  
  
"Ah. Good. Don't go anywhere. Back in a tic."  
  
The breakfast couldn't really be described as "delightful," but Lilian hadn't eaten since tea the day before, and was perfectly willing to settle for "edible." It consisted of a bowl of porridge, slightly bland and slightly cold and more-than-slightly lumpy, a few lumps of cold bread, and a bottle of rum, of which Lilian partook only a little. Jack dined on little else, and left most of the mediocre spread for his guest.  
  
"Well," he said, clearing the dishes (shoving them to a corner, where a large collection of their fellows already rested.) "you really are very pleasant company, Lilzie, but a man's got to get to work."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"You should probably get some sleep."  
  
Lilian shrugged.  
  
"Although..." Jack's face took on an expression Lilian was not familiar with; those who had spent more time in his presence would equate it with impending, irreversible doom. "if you feel like being useful..." 


	5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Consider this work disclaimed.   
  
A shortish, fluffy chapter, though Lord knows it took me long enough. Thank you once again for all the support and kind reviews! And for those helpful souls who've been giving me criticisms and advice, I promise I am not ignoring you! I've been really busy lately--and not in a good way. I hope to get updating regularly again soon, but I can't make any promises.  
  
*Chapter Four*  
  
"That is absolutely the last time I ever 'feel like being useful,'" Lilian muttered to herself.  
  
Somewhere on The Pearl, Jack Sparrow was grinning to himself like a madman.  
  
In Anamaria's old cabin, Lilian Turner was surrounded by what seemed to be miles and miles of mending.  
  
Shirts and trousers, bits of cloaks and blankets...it seemed like anything and everything made of cloth on the ship had been ripped or torn in one way or another. And all of it had been heaped in her small cabin, waiting for "a feminine touch" as Jack had put it, waggling his fingers in what he must have thought was a dainty way.  
  
She should have been furious, she realized. You don't make hostages do chores. You abuse them, starve them, kick them, perhaps, but you don't honestly expect them to be helpful.   
  
But Jack Sparrow obviously did. And, to her surprise, Lilian was complying. She had shoved the filthier items of clothing to one side--those, at least, she wouldn't touch, at least until they were washed, and was starting on cloaks and blankets.  
  
The needles were larger than those she was used to, and slightly rusty, and the thread came in two colors: white, and white stained with rust.   
  
It was getting hot, and she was still laced into her whalebone prison, but it was nice to do something useful. She hadn't realized she had been sewing so long when Jack stood in the doorway, beaming maniacally, with "a spot of lunch."  
  
"Leave it on the chest over there. I'm almost done," Lilian said, struggling with some odd garment made of heavy canvas.  
  
He smiled. "Lilzie, kitten, you're a peach. You're doing more work than the rest of my crew put together."  
  
"Funny, isn't it, as I'm not a part of your crew..." Her brows drew together. "Why am I doing this again?"  
  
"Because you're a peach. And because the last crewmember I had who knew how to sew left...left...I don't remember when. Must'v been a while ago, right, if we've got so much mending?"  
  
Lilian, trying to sew and converse at the same time, pricked her finger with the needle. "You should find a crewmember who knows how to sew."  
  
He cocked his head to one side and looked at her. "I'll most strongly consider it, love," he said slowly.  
  
She could feel the telltale burning in her cheeks. Lilian turned abruptly away, to Jack's delight, and tried to think pale thoughts; feeling a gold-capped smile burning into the side of her head.  
  
She turned back to him when she felt that the burn had sufficiently subsided.  
  
"Better yet," she said. "I'll teach you how. It isn't hard."  
  
And that odd day found Captain Jack Sparrow on the floor of the small cabin, surrounded by mending, brow furrowed and sweat-beaded in intense concentration. They sat quietly side by side, with Lilian giving the occasional helpful direction.  
  
"It's like a sword, Mister Sparrow. You hold the blunt end, and you poke the pointy end," she said patiently.  
  
"Captain. Captain Sparrow. Jack, actually, m'dear." Flirting and sewing are a bad combination in the best of times. He gave a very un-Captainlike yelp, and displayed to her a tiny drop of blood as if it were a grave injury. "You call that 'BLUNT'?!"  
  
Lilian, in return, displayed her own hands.  
  
They had been, until that day, aristocrats' hands; delicate and uncalloused. She knew how to sew, true, but usually with silks and tiny embroidery needles, and usually in extreme moderation. The fingers she showed Jack were raw and reddened, with small dots of blood here and there where she had pricked herself.  
  
Her one-upmanship had unforeseen consequences, she realized too late, as Jack dropped his own sewing to caress her abused fingers gently. The red flooded immediately back to her cheeks, and she tore her hand from his grip indignantly.   
  
He chuckled. "I do make you nervous, don't I?" he said cheerfully, to which there was really no suitable reply.  
  
He was--she had to face it--a very difficult man to dislike.  
  
"Yer mum was always a bit tense, I remember. 'Mister Sparrow' this and 'Mister Sparrow' that. Comes from bein' brought up around too many gentlemen. They tend to be a little uptight. Some cards one is meant to play close to the vest, kitten, and some one isn't, do you understand?"  
  
Lilian shook her head, although a certain dark realization was indeed starting to dawn.  
  
"Anyway," he continued--he had a strange ability to ignore someone, even while conversing with them. "Miss Elizabeth got over it, I think, and you're really much nicer than she ever was. Meaning no insult to the dear old mum, of course. But...well...you don't honestly suppose she would've sewed sheets for me, do you?"  
  
Lilian laughed. "Don't honestly know why I'm doing it myself."  
  
He laughed. "I can tell you! Because I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, and because you, my blushing kitten, absolutely adore me!"  
  
"Indeed?" Lilian raised a single, eloquent eyebrow.  
  
"Of course. Even if you don't know it yet. And I've got at least a week before we get to Port Royal to convince you."  
  
He jumped up, then, scattering mending. "Got to be off, I'm afraid, lovely as this is. Things to do. Ships to captain. Eat your lunch, love, and join me for dinner, would you?"  
  
He blew her a kiss from the doorway and was gone.   
  
She stared at the door for far too long, and, although she told herself it was only because she was sick of sewing, she also knew that she was a poor liar. The blush was still not gone; half angry, half amused at his games. She was used to gentlemen, whose advances were far less overt, although the intentions--particularly with a pretty girl like that--were always the same. Or were they? Jack Sparrow obviously took precious little in this world seriously. It was, she imagined, a rather nice way to live. Half-mad he might be, but still, it made a pleasant change from society's sanity.  
  
She continued to sew for quite some time, as her fingers slowly drifted from "sore and bloody" to the more pleasant, if more ominous "numb and bloody." When it finally occurred to her to eat the lunch Sparrow had left, it was nearly five o'clock.   
  
The prospect of more sewing was abhorrent, and no other activities would likely make themselves available in her cabin. It occurred to her that she could leave and explore the ship, as Jack had obviously not locked the door again, but it was probably not a very good idea.  
  
So, naturally, full of stale bread and bacon, she shoved all the mending off her bed and slept.  
  
Jack, intending to wake her for dinner not much later, found her looking so exhausted and peaceful, and, feeling slightly guilty about her bloody fingers, let her sleep. 


	6. Chapter 5

First off, it's been a terribly long time since I updated this, and I certainly shouldn't be doing it  
  
right now. I have finals this week, and by all rights I should be studying, not relaxing with fanfic.  
  
But that doesn't really matter. I proudly present you with:  
  
*Chapter Five*  
  
Jack Sparrow had never previously considered sleep a talent, but he was starting to be quite  
  
impressed with young Miss Turner's ability. Really, it was amazing.  
  
She could sleep for days, he reckoned, and grinned. And she'd missed dinner for the second time  
  
of his ship.   
  
He looked at her, Anamaria's old bunk an island in a sea of mending, sleeping peacefully but  
  
looking slightly peevish. Either she was hungry, or that nasty dress was making her as miserable  
  
as Elizabeth's had. She lay, rather delicately, on her side, swathes of crumpled skirt flowing on  
  
either  
  
Either way, he reasoned, he was probably in the right waking her up.  
  
Once again, he needed somebody to talk to, and she was the only one who didn't actually have to  
  
up early in the morning. He didn't have to justify it, did he? She was on his ship, and he was in  
  
charge. Anyway, she should be grateful that she was here, safe and sound. His dark eyes drifted to  
  
her hands; rather rawer, they were, than hands were generally meant to be. Safe-ish and sound-  
  
ish, anyway. Better than she could possibly have expected on most pirate ships, anyway. So he  
  
shouldn't really feel guilty, waking her. But she looked so peaceful...  
  
Lilian turned, slightly, and murmured something, and let the blanket fall a little further from her  
  
torso, revealing a very nice view. Perhaps he ought to wake her up after all.  
  
She frowned a little, in her sleep, and a hand crept to the front of her bodice, tugging weakly at it  
  
as if to free her chest from the bone-and-iron prison.  
  
Should wake her up, then, if only to help her out of that contraption.  
  
Her hand fell away, and lay, slightly curled, at her side, and she turned again.  
  
Her hair fell down past her shoulder blades, slightly curly, a dark brown, like Will's. Most of it has  
  
escaped its untidy braid. Her dark eyes were veiled behind long, dark lashes. Her lips, full and  
  
delicate, like Elizabeth's, parted slightly, and she sighed.  
  
Hadn't actually decided -how- he was going to wake her, after all.  
  
And the girl was quite a sound sleeper.  
  
Jack was a pirate, after all, and, though his honor definitely existed, it was also very fond of him.  
  
A little kiss wouldn't hurt, after all. Maybe the gel wouldn't even wake up. Maybe she would.  
  
Maybe it would earn him a clobber and a week of sulking, but it was worth it to find out.  
  
So he knelt, a little awkwardly, by Anamaria's bunk, and slipped an arm underneath her shoulders,  
  
turning her slowly until she faced him. He smoothed the hair from her face, tracing the line of her  
  
cheek until his fingers rested beneath her jaw.  
  
And he kissed her.  
  
Slow and gentle; wouldn't do to jolt the little kitten out of dreamland too quickly, would it? She  
  
was soft and warm and angelically peaceful. He would have grinned, had his mouth not been  
  
otherwise occupied. She shifted closer to him, sighing a little, but remained asleep.  
  
He had taken the one risk tonight. Inwardly, he shrugged, and decided to push his luck a bit  
  
further. Stronger, deeper let the hand at her jaw trace downward, let the hand beneath her  
  
shoulders come up and tangle in her hair and give him a little more control.  
  
Still sleeping, by the gods. Perhaps he ought to start getting insulted. But she was purring, softly,  
  
and snuggling closer to him by the minute.  
  
He might have been safe; might have untangled her from his arms and left her to what would now  
  
be extremely pleasant dreams. But the fates, or, perhaps, the Black Pearl, have far too much  
  
humor.  
  
The boat rocked, in a sudden wind or a sudden wave, he wasn't sure, just as the warm, sleepy  
  
kitten edged a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, and, with a sharp thump that did no  
  
kindness to his left elbow, the both spilled backwards.  
  
It could have been worse. Anamaria's bunk was not very high, and Jack Sparrow has a pile of dirty  
  
canvas to break his fall. And, of course, Lilian Turner had Jack Sparrow to break hers.   
  
Fuzzy with sleep, stiff and constricted by her dress, she could do little more than roll off his chest  
  
and drag herself into a sitting position and stare quizzically at the Captain. He sat up, looking  
  
rather more dazed than a simple tumble should have made him, and he seemed not at all inclined to  
  
move.  
  
"Was trying to wake you, darling," he said cheerfully. "Dreadfully deep sleeper, you are. I was  
  
starting to think you'd been poisoned."  
  
"I don't recall falling asleep on the floor," she said, shaking her head slightly as if to clear it. "And  
  
I'm not usually such a sound sleeper. Anyway, why did you want to wake me?"  
  
"Only sleep soundly on the sea, don't you," he murmured, and she nodded. "Anyways, I thought  
  
you might like a spot of dinner, as you seem to have slept through it again."  
  
"You -said- you'd wake me," she pointed out.  
  
"I did wake you."   
  
"For dinner."  
  
He smiled, cheerfully; it made his face look disturbingly young. "Dinner it is, milady," he said, and  
  
took her by the hand.  
  
His cabin was elegant, ancient and messy. Coins, maps, papers and other odds and ends were  
  
swept carelessly to the floor as he cleared the table for her. Barbossa had made his mark on this  
  
room, and Jack was still in the process of cleaning him from it.   
  
Dinner consisted of cold potato stew, spicy and rather good, dry-but-tolerable biscuits and a bottle  
  
of old, cloudy wine. A bowl of fruit rather decadent, for a pirate's ship sat in the middle of the  
  
table. Lilian ate quietly she entered the waking world slowly, and wasn't up for conversation.  
  
Jack, too, seemed lost in thought.  
  
Staring at some point on the wall, he reached for the fruit bowl, and removed an orange, which he  
  
began to idly toss from hand to hand. He seemed, for a few minutes, content with his game; the he  
  
reached, and purloined another orange and an apple and began to juggle.  
  
The fruit arced and spun. Jack, like any good performer, paid little attention to it. His beat was a  
  
little uneven, and he occasionally stretched to catch a wayward orb, but he didn't let a single fruit  
  
fall.  
  
At some point, Lilian had left her food and now she was watching him appraisingly. His faraway  
  
look vanished, and he smiled and winked at her. "Impressed?"  
  
"Sorry," she said, with half a grin. "Can't oblige. I can do that too."  
  
"Oh? Let's have a demonstration then."  
  
He tossed an orange to her, and she caught it in her left hand easily. The other two fruit followed,  
  
each a bit harder to catch. Concentrating, Lilian began.  
  
She tossed ranges and apple from hand to hand with just as much ease as Jack had; in fact,  
  
showing off, she speeded up a bit, adding a fancy twist to each spin.   
  
He was not to be outdone. He rose from his chair and grabbed more fruit from the bowl and began  
  
to juggle in tandem with her. Across the table, Lilian rose as well, letting her fruit move in wider  
  
circles, and he followed suit.  
  
She fumbled a catch, and instead of letting her apple drop, she batted it towards him. Without  
  
missing a beat, he caught it, sending an orange across the table to her in its place.   
  
Six fruit were in the air, flying from hand to hand, from Jack to Lilian and from Lilian to Jack in  
  
ever more complex patterns. At some point he had grabbed a few more fruits, and added them to  
  
the mix, at which point Lilian was starting to get overwhelmed.   
  
Finally, a pineapple, of all things, flew towards her at an alarming pace, and she dropped her  
  
current jug to deflect it. Jack, snickering, lost track of his own pattern. The stared at the carnage  
  
around them; at least eight or nine fruits were scattered across the table and around each player, in  
  
various stages of squished and bruising. Jack idly picked up a bruised and bleeding apple and  
  
examined it carefully, distracting himself from the strangely talented young lady who was gathering  
  
oranges from his cabin flood and laughing to herself, albeit a tad nervously. After all, where -does-  
  
one go from a midnight juggling match, particularly when one party had recently stolen an  
  
oblivious, if rather nice, kiss from the other?   
  
"How did you learn to do that?" he asked curiously.  
  
"Taught myself," she said idly. "And after that, it impressed the little ones so much that I kept it  
  
up. How did you learn?"  
  
"Don't rightly remember. But it's fun, isn't it?"  
  
"You...don't remember?"  
  
He didn't seem to be paying any attention now. "Memory's an odd thing, kitten." He held his apple  
  
up to a candle as one might an egg.  
  
For a long, strange moment, she stared at him, perplexed, as he seemed once again to gaze off into  
  
the distance.  
  
"Eh?"  
  
He smiled, faintly. "Oh, '...a man can remember the world beyond the horizon, and the dark side of  
  
the moon, but not what he ate for breakfast.'"  
  
"You've seen the dark side of the moon?" she asked quietly, trying not to snap him out of his  
  
reverie.  
  
"Hmm?" He turned. "Nah, kitten. I was quoting."  
  
"Quoting who?"  
  
"Don't remember. Me, mebbe. Does it matter?" He flung out a dramatic arm, as if to expound a  
  
dramatic Shakespearean monologue, and said: "Sun's about to rise. And crew, too, come to think  
  
of it. How long have you been wearing that dress?"  
  
"Um. Nearly two days."   
  
"Isn't it uncomfortable?"  
  
"Very."  
  
"Feel free to borrow Anamaria's old clothes. You're a bit shorter than her, but you should be able  
  
to manage."  
  
"I would love to," Lilian said. "If I could get this miserable getup off in the first place."  
  
He grinned, and, Lilian frowned in annoyance. It had taken two days and a very roundabout  
  
conversation to come to this: she wouldn't ask for his help and he wouldn't offer it, but the  
  
understanding had been reached.  
  
"At your service, milady," he said softly, reaching for her hand. "Although we should probably  
  
return to your cabin first."  
  
Lilian blushed, more at his touch than his insinuations. But the next thing she knew, she was back  
  
in her mess of a cabin, while Jack Sparrow was deftly and slowly unlacing her corset.   
  
"Tie your hair up, darling, I'm having a bit of trouble," he said, and the long dark curls were swept  
  
up and secured with a bit of string she'd picked up somewhere. It left an expanse of creamy back  
  
and shoulders visible above the low back of her dress.  
  
She couldn't see him, that was the problem. Couldn't see, but she could feel him, warm and strong  
  
and almost safe, and he left his fingers run down her spine, and she shivered. There was a quiet  
  
"hmm" behind her, and he did it again, and then, as if there was no subterfuge going on, continued  
  
plucking at the last of the laces, until several pounds of dress slid to the floor at Lilian's feet and  
  
she turned to face him, which might not have been the best idea.  
  
He was scant inches away from her, and her eyes were level with his chest. His eyes were on -her-  
  
chest, and she was standing before him in a thin white cotton slip, designed more to keep scratchy  
  
fabric from her skin that for any actual concealment. She flushed, and tried to back away.  
  
Between the mending filling the cabin and her newly relinquished dress, she was standing in nearly  
  
a full foot of fabric. Backing away was not an option.   
  
Falling ungracefully with a soft thump on her rear, however, was.  
  
Jack, true to his nature, laughed out loud. "I -do- keep you off-balance, don't I, kitten?"  
  
"Jack Sparrow, you are an ass."   
  
"Captain."  
  
"Captain Jack Sparrow, you are an ass. Thank you," she added, as he hoisted her up. She laughed,  
  
for the first time since she'd arrived on his ship, a true, joyful laugh. "Now go away, and do  
  
something captain-ly."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I need to change, and I am -not- doing it with you here."  
  
"Even if I ask nicely?"  
  
One good push propelled him out the door, which was promptly shut behind him.   
  
"No," she said cheerfully. "Not yet, at any rate." And Lilian turned to root through the trunk of  
  
musty clothes for something more suitable for a pirate ship. 


End file.
